SAP IBP


Supply Chain Management: SAP IBP

Disruptive events are rapidly changing global supply chains. It is essential to create a new blueprint designed for agility and proactive response, ensuring unified planning, faster response, and visibility.

What Exactly Is SAP IBP?

SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is cloud-based planning software for supply chain management. Using real-time information, it helps companies respond more quickly to market and business volatility. The objective is a process to translate desired outcomes into financial and operational requirements, maximizing profit and cash flow while minimizing risk.

SAP IBP consists of several modules which can be used independently as well:

  • IBP for Demand
  • IBP for Inventory
  • IBP for Response and Supply
  • IBP for Sales and Operations Planning (for fully integrated S&OP processes)
  • IBP Supply Chain Control Tower (for real-time control, analysis, and management of supply chains)

Key features include:

Supply Chain Management: SAP IBP

Disruptive events are rapidly changing global supply chains. It is essential to create a new blueprint designed for agility and proactive response, ensuring unified planning, faster response, and visibility.

What Exactly Is SAP IBP?

SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is cloud-based planning software for supply chain management. Using real-time information, it helps companies respond more quickly to market and business volatility. The objective is a process to translate desired outcomes into financial and operational requirements, maximizing profit and cash flow while minimizing risk.

SAP IBP consists of several modules which can be used independently as well:

  • IBP for Demand
  • IBP for Inventory
  • IBP for Response and Supply
  • IBP for Sales and Operations Planning (for fully integrated S&OP processes)
  • IBP Supply Chain Control Tower (for real-time control, analysis, and management of supply chains)

Key features include:

  • Supply Chain Control Tower: A visual dashboard of data and KPI’s across the enterprise supply chain.
  • Demand Management: Full transparency with options for time series forecasting using algorithms and models.
  • Stock Management: Optimize target inventory to exceed customer service levels, while balancing costs and risk.

The most important functions of SAP IBP are:

  • Real-time planning for balancing supply and demand
  • Forecasting functions
  • Strong performance based on the SAP HANA platform
  • User friendly with vivid visuals
  • Ability to test and compare scenarios
  • Connection with Microsoft Excel.

The Difference Between SAP IBP and APO

SAP IBP is the next-generation planning tool for supply chain management. It has new innovative features and functions compared to SAP Advanced Planning and Optimization (APO). SAP IBP offers a multi-echelon inventory solution that APO does not carry. Many of the aggregation/disaggregation features of IBP for S&OP are only theoretically possible in APO. It is estimated that SAP APO will be maintained until 2025, then SAP IBP will replace it.

Technical resource partners for consideration might beSAP,  Gib or Reveal.

Further Insights for SAPinsiders

  • How to Build a Resilient and Efficient Supply Chain with Robust Sales and Operations Planning Using SAP IBP_S4HANA. Ulaganathan Balakrishnan, shares an article detailing experiences around implementing S&OP across many diverse industries.
  • Leverage SAP Integrated Business Planning for Forecasting. John Yuva of SAPinsider and  Marco Sisfontes-Monge, Managing Partner of Arellius Enterprises, conduct a Q & A with insights about how a robust system can adjust forecasting needs quickly based on changing market conditions.
  • 5 Steps of S&OP to Achieve an Integrated Business Plan. Venkata Ramana Nethi from Schlumberger discusses understanding the framework, key activities, inputs, and outputs of S&OP with the SAP IBP

37 results

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    Probabilistic Supply Chain and Demand Forecasting with SAP IBP: Deliver Results Using Data Science

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    SAP introduced the concept of Probabilistic Supply Chain into its SAP IBP product in the current and future versions with adaptive and very powerful algorithms for large data sets. Certainly, AI has been around within the SAP landscape for a while with extremely powerful algorithms in the SAP BW-Data Mining suite and SAP HANA PAL…
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    At this year’s Mastering SAP Gold Coast conference, Cornelia Boonstra, leader of integrated business planning at ANSTO, shared the story of how the organization evolved from supply chain planning solely with Excel spreadsheets to a cloud-based model leveraging SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP). In this highlight from the presentation, you will learn how ANSTO was…
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    Effective planning is critical for the success of supply chain management. Businesses can improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs, and gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace by shaping demand, optimizing inventory levels, supply, production schedules, logistics operations, and risk management strategies. Planning increases supply chain resiliency as allows organizations to manage disruptions. Disruptions in the…
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    SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a leading supply chain planning tool. SAP makes regular enhancements to update the solution. SAP released the latest version of SAP IBP in February 2023. This article reviews some key enhancements in the 2302 SAP IBP release. This content is for SAPinsider Preferred Access Yearly, SAPinsider Preferred Access Monthly,…
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    Among many other features that SAP ICP has for integrated demand planning, inventory management is a critical one. Respondents highlighted inventory management as one of the key focus areas in our recent research on supply chain planning in the cloud. With the increased complexities in the supply chain and the severe disruptions that many supply…
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    Promotion Planning and Management with SAP IBP

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    Demand forecasting was highlighted as a key challenge in SAPinsider's recent research Supply Chain Planning in The Cloud. The quality of forecasts also plays a key role in inventory management, which has emerged as another key focus area for SAPinsiders. We will also publish a research report focused on this specific topic of inventory management…
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    Supply Chain Planning Integration Imperative

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    Supply chain planning solutions have existed for decades now. However, as technology and business requirements evolve, so do these solutions. New technologies and capabilities emerge that integrate with existing supply chain planning solutions and contribute to the evolution of planning solutions. A good example is the cloud. SAPinsider recently published a research report, Supply Chain…
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    Increase Service Levels and Lower Inventory with SAP DDMRP

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    Demand-driven material requirements planning (DDMRP) is a solution to plan materials and inventories. While traditional MRP does a respectable job of planning, DDMRP improves on that functionality to work better in a volatile environment. It enables companies to get closer to customers’ requirements, promoting faster decisions at the planning and execution level. Why can’t sales,…